


Good Thoughts

by Katydid_99



Category: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey
Genre: An “Oh no he’s cute” Moment, Braids, Character Study, Continuing on my Campaign to Remind the World That Chief is the Main Character, Gen, Give Chief Bromden a Hug, Hair, Hair Braiding, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Memory Loss, Native American/First Nations Culture, Native American/First Nations Cultures, RP McMurphy is a Pan Icon, Racism, Reclaiming Culture, The Combine, cultural erasure, gaelic, not movie compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27570844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katydid_99/pseuds/Katydid_99
Summary: A study in cultural erasure, memory, and healing(OR: Chief Braids His Hair)
Relationships: Chief Bromden & Randle McMurphy
Kudos: 7





	Good Thoughts

They shaved me when I first came in. 

That’s the first thing they did after I was healthy enough to be moved from the hospital wing to general population. Admittedly it’s all still a little unclear to me. I remember being seated down- strapped down- with the cruel silver glitter of the razor and scissors on the counter, the harsh mechanical buzz blending with the grind of machinery, screaming  **_AIR RAID AIR RAID_ ** all the time.

(I remember it felt like being burned.)

I don’t have any memory until what must have been a few months later, but I must have thrown a fit of some epic proportion because they never touched my hair again. Haircuts in general became lax on the Big Nurse’s ward, not that it affected anyone else too much. No one else on the ward wore their hair long until Scanlon came along, hair dark and shiny like expensive furniture in a tail over his shoulder. I think he might be secretly grateful to me for that. 

When my own started flipping past my ears Williams threw a glare and a package of rubber hair ties my way, and I got the idea. Nowadays my hair trails down to my hips and every morning it goes up in a low, loose bun. The few times I’ve tried to leave the Night Room without it the aides have shoved me back in, hard enough to bruise, and then keep shoving until I finally tied it up. The Big Nurse’s message was clear: my Indian blood was not to interfere with her ward any more than my general caginess. 

(Taking it out at the end of the day always reminded me of those old Civil War drawings of ladies in their underthings. Skirts made of bone and steel, with caged tops tightened with ropes. Aesthetics over comfort; assimilation over security. To be undressed was to  _ breathe. _ )

This morning I’m assigned to making the beds. Everyone else has already gone to breakfast and probably already finished by now. Technically I suppose I could get away with having my hair down, but I have it up, and I make beds and think about my father. I remember he wore his hair in a simple ponytail down the center of his back, grey mixed in with the black like a silver mine. One day he came home with it clipped to his scalp, paired with a black eye and a split lip. We didn’t speak about that night. Uncle RJ had favored braids. He’d been the one who when Papa was negotiating with the government and Mama was staying as far out of any of it as possible had chased me through the grass, both of us laughing, to braid mine when I was really little, then taught me to do it myself. 

That memory comes surprisingly easily, and I pause in my cleaning. It’s a Polaroid-snapshot moment: seven or eight years old, sitting between his legs as he works, the air crisp but the sun warm. There were jokes and songs and stories about when him and Papa were little, but this time he’s uncharacteristically solemn.

“Not everyone’s going to understand why we do this, buddy,” he had said, “and some people might even try to make you feel ashamed of it. Don’t ever let them do that. Our hair is how we honor our ancestors and our minds and bodies. That’s why it’s important to always have good thoughts while you braid, so you can carry them with you all day.”

I cast a glance to the ward doors. I’m alone, and will remain so until I’m done cleaning. The scream of the Combine is surprisingly quiet and I can’t see any fog. The back of my scalp feels tight, it feels  _ pulled.  _ With a sigh I toss the sweat-stained pillowcase in my hands aside, plop onto a random bed, and start pulling the elastic from my hair. What I’m doing is against the rules, but the deep certain need I feel to remember, to connect to  _ something,  _ is too strong. Besides, in a world of imaginary baseball games, shattered windows, and red-headed hell-raisers, breaking the rules has started to become quite an ordinary thing to me.

My legs folded, I sit in the center of the bed, combing my hair smooth with my fingers. Despite not having done this in so many years I find it easy to reach up and separate my hair from the crown of my head, letting the two sides collect over either shoulder. Muscle memory, I think it is called.  _ Like riding a bicycle,  _ I can almost hear McMurphy say, followed by a good natured laugh and a slap on the back. 

(I’ve never ridden a bicycle. I don’t know if that matters.)

I take the bundle of hair on my left and split it into three parts. Mind, body, spirit. It’s been a long time since I’d seen the latter two, my spirit being stolen long ago and my body being more of an afterthought when I became little. But now I’m not. I still don’t know how he did it; it makes me wonder how good a grip I have on my mind, or if I ever had a grip on it anyway. If anything speaks to that it’s my patchwork memory, tattered at the edges and sloppily seamed. So much of me has been beaten and shocked out of me over the years: I’m remembering more now, but will that last? Are there pieces of me that are lost forever? 

_ Good thoughts _ , Uncle RJ had said. 

Do I even have those anymore?

I let the hair drop back on my shoulder and swipe at my eyes. I’ve lost so much. They’ve taken so much of me.

But at least I have this. This has returned to me. I think of Papa, of Uncle RJ, of the Falls and duck hunts and fireflies and the moon… they have all come back to me. 

I reseperate the hair and I begin to braid. 

Again I’m amazed by my own muscle memory. Over, under, switch; over, under, switch; over, under… I imagine that I’m locking the memories in with the knots of hair like beads. My hair is slick under my fingers, black like crow feathers, warm in my hands. It seems to want to be braided as much as I want it to be.

At the end I secure it with an elastic and look over my work. The shorter hairs around my face have escaped, gone back to hanging in my eyes, but I haven’t done a bad job. I want to think that Uncle RJ would have been proud.

As I start on the second one I let my eyes fall closed, feeling the motion of my hands through my hair and thinking of the nicest things I can. Songs in the shower, crushed pills, drawling accents and smart jokes, physics textbooks, the open sea and the salty air. Billy’s cuts healing up, George taking breaks from washing, Fredrickson and Sefelt spooning before bed, Harding smiling more than I can ever remember. 

Would any of them understand? The majority of them are that generic store brand of American, but there are some outliers among the Acutes. George is Polish, Martini’s Italian, Scanlon is Puerto Rican… are they just as homesick for something they can barely remember? They haven’t told and I can’t ask.

McMurphy would understand, I think. He’s Irish, a fact that he’s mentioned at least once a day, born to immigrant parents who were transplanted here long before he was even a thought. I don’t know what Ireland is like, but there are some things about him that I know aren’t from around here. There’s a language he speaks sometimes that sounds like birthday card handwriting- he likes it best in grumbled curses and happy songs. Most of his tattoos are easily identifiable- dates and military logos, poker paraphernalia and half naked ladies- but there are some I can’t recognize. A geometrically knotted circle over his breast. A pair of hands cradling a crowned heart on the back of his neck. His drinking tolerance is definitely something from out of this world.

My fingers reach the bottom of the braid, and I pinch it between the top of my thumb and index finger, feeling something like victory. I only have one elastic on me; I know I have more in my bedside table. I just need to hold it till I can get one.

“Hey, what’s holdin’ you up back here, Chief?”

I gasp as my eyes snap open and I whip my head towards the door. McMurphy stands frozen in the threshold, his next words dying on his lips as he takes me in. I can’t move; I feel a stab of panic, old fear rising, but I force it back down. I’m tired of being afraid. I’m tired of being ashamed.

McMurphy just stands there for a moment, staring at me. I curl my shoulders in a little and stare back. He chuckles faintly and closes the door behind him. His ears look pink as he slowly steps into the room, suddenly going to his hands and knees, disappearing from sight, then reappearing in front of me. He grins up at me and places a dusty old elastic on my thigh. 

“This what you were lookin’ for?” he asks.

Nodding in response, I tie my second braid in place as he hops onto the bed next to me, the mattress swaying under his sudden weight. He waits until I’m finished before sticking a thick, crooked finger under my chin and turning my face towards his. McMurphy tilts his head to the side and beams, still a little pink under his scars and freckles. 

“Looks good, buddy,” he says in a quiet kind of voice. His eyes look soft for a moment before he claps me on the shoulder and grins until I smile back, then laughs again and hops off the bed. “C’mon, I just taught the fellas how to play BS- you can spectate!”

He grabs my hand and leads me out of the ward. As I’m dragged down the hall I can’t help but worry what the Big Nurse and her underlings might think when they see my hair, but between McMurphy’s smiles and the comforting weight of the braids hanging against my shoulders, I can’t help but feel a little optimistic.

(I think this might make a good memory to use for next time.)

**Author's Note:**

> \- The tribe Ken Kesey assigned Chief to in the books appears to have been fictional, so this is based in what I have been able to read about Native American culture surrounding hair especially in the Pacific Northwest. I tried to be as accurate as I could be, but if I got anything really wrong or was offensive, please let me know. 
> 
> \- The language Mac knows is Gaelic. His tattoos are Celtic designs- the Shield Knot (symbol of strength and protection; chest) and a Claddagh (symbol of love; neck)


End file.
